The Fluffy Incident
by MiroTheCat
Summary: It's the day after the Halloween feast and the troll, and Snape is on the warpath...or would be if he wasn't in so much pain.


Severus was going to kill that troublemaking git Quirrell. In the most painful way he could possibly invent. Never mind that until Quirenus had left on his sabbatical two years before they had been good friends, Severus was going to kill him slowly and painfully. Well, as soon as he could walk again, anyway. Severus groaned and tried to resettle his leg on the cushions with as little movement as possible, debating whether or not he could summon potions from his lab without damaging either the potions or the doors in between. After a moment of thought he decided that either the potions or the doors would surely be damaged in the process and in his state he was not up to cleaning up a mess. Sooner or later he would be forced to leave his chambers, and he could get them then when he was already torturing himself. He slumped back into his pillows, closing his eyes against the pain and willing himself to fall asleep so he could hide from the world for a few hours.

Bloody Quirrell and that bloody three headed dog that bloody Hagrid had contributed to protect the bloody stone. Quirrell's little stunt at the feast had been good, but not good enough to fool him. So what had he done? He'd played the bloody hero and slipped off to stop his ex-friend from whatever he was up to. But Quirenus was no idiot, as Severus well knew. As soon as the git figured out that Severus was on his trail, he changed his plans and joined the other teachers, leaving Severus to get mauled by the bloody beast. He'd had to leave his wounds untreated and concealed while he rejoined the other teachers with an excuse about thinking he'd seen a couple students slipping away from their prefects and going to investigate. That the lie had been given credibility when they'd found Potter and his little sidekicks with the troll was a plus, but still didn't make up for it. The git had almost smirked at him as he lied about his whereabouts, knowing that Severus could never tell anyone the truth without looking guilty himself. Unfortunately for him, that included that he couldn't go to the hospital wing.

Someone was banging on his door and making an unholy racket. "Severus, are you there?"

He moaned softly. "Yes, I am here. What do you want?" He shouted back, fighting off dizziness. He'd have to add a blood replenishing potion to the list that he needed to take. Speaking of blood... shit, he'd bled through the bandages.

"Just to make sure you're okay. Nobody's seen you all morning and it's not like you to sleep in. It's nearly lunchtime and you'd better not skip lunch or shirk on your patrols this afternoon young man."

"Alright, alright, I'll be there." He dragged himself out of bed, transfigured a teacup into a walking stick, and hobbled from his bedroom to his private lab. There he unlocked all his cabinets, settled down on a bench, and got to work treating his wounds. He'd gritted his teeth and stitched himself back together the night before, but the wounds were still oozing blood and now looked infected as well. Of course the bloody thing's mouth would be full of germs, it just figured. To top it off, his whole leg was terribly swollen and discolored. He rapidly downed his very finest potions for pain, swelling, infection, and blood loss, cleaned the wounds with a strong antiseptic, and re-bandaged his leg tightly, adding a few spells to the bandages that more or less turned them into a cast without making them any bulkier. He already knew how little weight his leg was going to support, and it would arouse suspicion if he was walking with a stick.

Lunch was torturous, everyone buzzing about the night before, Poppy hovering and telling him how bad it was for him to skip breakfast, and he just plain didn't feel well. All he wanted was to go back to bed, lie still, maybe have a little tea should he feel the need for sustenance. He had learned long ago that overdoing it on injuries would make him feel ill, and this time was no exception. Curse Poppy and her need to hover and force him to eat! He felt like he was going to vomit if he ate another bite. Thankfully she was called away for some student having an allergic reaction, and he was able to sneak out and empty his churning stomach before supervising the students' free time in the courtyard.

The one highlight- hell, the one moment that he could remember semi-clearly- of his afternoon was taking an opportunity to pick on the Potter brat and dock him points for nothing. The rest of it was just a painful blur punctuated only by the discovery fifteen minutes before the evening staff meeting that he had bled through his bandages again and needed Argus's fumbling help to change them, which of course Potter had managed to stumble across. Bugger it all. He wanted to go to bed, and was almost ready to admit to meddlesome Poppy Pomfrey that he was injured just so that he could lie down. Almost. He settled for claiming tiredness due to having to get up during the night to tend a sensitive experimental potion, and excused himself from socializing after the meeting.

He was going to bloody murder Quirrell and the dog both when he could walk again.

* * *

_Another one crossposted. Snape's point of view on the events of Halloween night in Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone. This one also got a number of giggles and winces from reviewers on the other site, so I hope you like it._


End file.
